Top Ten Korean Golf Stories of 2006

3. Song Hee Kim Dominates Futures Tour
In many ways, 2006 was the year of the teenager. One of the most amazing performances turned in by a Korean teenager in 2006 was the season long dominance of the Futures Tour by Song Hee Kim. It was all the more amazing when you consider that the Futures Tour is deeper than ever, and that several other players turned in impressive performances of their own this year. But none of them could keep up with the shy Korean star.

Song Hee was important not just for her record setting achievements, but for the way that her very presence had changed the rules for the Futures Tour. Her brilliance started before she even joined the tour. She was a member of the Korean national team as an amateur, but was still virtually unknown in the States when she showed up at Futures Tour Q-School in late 2005. She was not allowed to join the tour full time, as she was only seventeen, but the rules did allow her to play in the qualifying school. By the time the week was done, she had claimed a five shot victory over Brittany Lang, a golfer who would go on to finish in the top thirty on the LPGA money list in 2006. Since she had qualified, she humbly asked the tour if they would make an exception and allow her to play on the tour full time despite her youth. The Futures Tour was so impressed with her poise and obvious talent that they not only allowed her to join, they lowered the minimum age limit for membership from 18 to 17. That move allowed several more Korean teenagers to qualify for the tour, and one of them, In-Bee Park, would go on to earn a tour card as well.

When the season started, it did not take Kim long to make her presence felt. She finished 8th in her very first event, then third in the second. In the third event, she made history. She won the Louisiana Futures Classic, becoming the youngest professional golfer, male or female, to ever win a tournament in the United States. In just three tournaments, she had taken control of the Rookie of the Year, Player of the Year and Money list races. She would not look back.

Kim continued to pile up the successes all season long. She won her second tournament in May at the IOS Futures Golf Classic in El Paso, Texas. That one went to a playoff, which turned out to be one of the longest in tour history. She was planning on flying to Korea the next day, and was worried that the event would be postponed due to darkness, and thus she would miss her flight. Perhaps this was the impetus she needed to finish the job; after a grueling nine hole battle, she finally took her second title. After enjoying a two week vacation with her parents, she returned to action in Wisconsin… and won that tournament as well. By this point, she had earned the admiration of all her peers, who looked to her as the standard by which to measure their own games. If they could play better than Song Hee on a given day, they knew they were playing well.

Song Hee's success was no accident. From tee to green, her game is already superb. She is a long driver off the tee, so long that even a Futures Tour member who has competed in long drive contests was quoted as being impressed by her length. Her swing is textbook perfection; one of her competitors was quoted as saying that she wanted a videotape of Kim's swing so she could study it. Song Hee's short game is also extremely strong, and she shows a great ability to improvise and pull off great shots in the clutch. In at least one win this year, a beautifully executed chip shot won her a trophy. Best of all, she has a relaxed, easy going style that sees her remaining calm and in control even under stress. Simply put, she has no glaring weaknesses.

Kim's third win showed another aspect of her talent that should hold her in great stead on the LPGA tour: she tends to play her best when the conditions are the toughest. At the Aurora Health Care Championship, the conditions were brutal. Only one player was able to finish under par, and that was Song Hee. Even more impressively, she shot her best round on the final day, a 3 under par 69 that was also the only round in the 60s on that day.

Only a month later, Kim notched her fourth win of the season, finishing the tournament on her 18th birthday. She had thus managed three wins and most of a fourth before she was even old enough to have played based on the tour's pre-Song Hee Kim rules. The win put her prohibitively ahead of everyone else in the league. That she would get an LPGA card for 2007 was no longer in question. Now she was aiming at the record books.

She got another mention in those records when she won her fifth tournament of the year at the Gettysburg Championship. The win tied her for most wins in a single season with Seoul Sister superstar Grace Park, who had won five of the nine events she played as a Futures Tour player in 1999. She was also close to setting the all time record for most money made in a single season. In the end, Song Hee finished just short of shattering that record, but her accomplishments nonetheless made her the player to beat all year on the Futures Tour. There is every indication that she will maintain that status as a rookie on the big tour in 2007.

2. Ji Yai Shin Dominates KLPGA
Never before have so many top stories in Korean golf come from outside the LPGA. More than any other year, 2006 saw golfers from other tours, amateurs, and really young girls achieve miraculous success. The KLPGA tour was no different. In 2006, a young eighteen year old phenom swept into the pro ranks, dominating everything she saw, breaking records left and right. Her name is Ji Yai Shin.

Shin started making noise while still a 17 year old high school student in 2005. That year she won the SK Enclean Championship, becoming the only amateur to win on that tour that year. She turned pro in December and promptly won an event on the Ladies Asian Golf Tour. All signs pointed to her being a factor when the KLPGA season started a few months later.

Still, the KLPGA was not without its own superstars. Bo Bae Song had owned the league the previous two seasons, and in 2005, two new Rookie stars - Hee Young Park and Na Yeon Choi - had come along who showed great promise. Park showed what she was made of by winning the initial event of the season; Shin finished third. But Song would struggle with injuries all year, opening the door somewhat for Shin.

Shin finished third in her second event of the year. The third event of the season was also the biggest: the Korean Women's Open. As usual, this event attracted a star studded field, including LPGA star Cristie Kerr. Kerr was playing well enough to win, but Shin stunned everyone by holding her off and taking the title herself. The victory catapulted Shin into the top spot on the KLPGA money list.

The brilliant tournaments kept coming for her. She finished second at the next event to maintain her spot atop the money list. As the first part of the season ended, she had to that point had a very successful rookie campaign; but it was only a foreshadowing of what was to come.

The KLPGA season is split into two halves, with the majority of the events coming in the late summer and autumn. When the second part of the season started, Hee Young Park collected her second victory to resume her spot on top of the league's money list; Shin finished 19th at the same event. For the moment, Shin was down. But that moment did not last long. At the very next event, the PAVV Invitational, Shin took the title by a stroke while Park was disqualified. Shin took over the money list lead and never looked back.

Ji Yai's record for the rest of the year was nothing short of amazing. In the remaining eight events of the year, she notched eight top tens. All but two of those finishes were top fives. She ran away from the other players on tour, breaking 200 million won for her season faster than anyone else in history. Before too much longer, she achieved an even more impressive feat: breaking Se Ri Pak's all time record for most money made in a season. Pak had made around 240 million won in the 1996 season. Shin shattered that record, exceeding 300 million won and coming close to eclipsing the 400 million won mark by the time all was said and done.

There were other marks in her sights as well. She won her third event of the year at the Orient Chinese Open. This event, the only KLPGA tournament of the season held outside Korea, was co-sanctioned by a Chinese golf tour and featured stars not only from the KLPGA but from China and Thailand as well. But the KLPGA dominated the event, scoring almost all of the top ten positions on the leaderboard, and Shin was by far the tops among all the Koreans. She won the event by a staggering eight shots, the largest margin of victory anyone had seen on the KLPGA in many years.

In the end, Shin won five season ending awards in 2006, a record. She collected awards for the Rookie of the Year, Player of the Year, Money list leader, most wins on tour and low scoring average. She became the first player in KLPGA history to record a sub-70 scoring average for the entire season: her average was 69.72, nearly a full stroke ahead of #2 Na Yeon Choi. Her money total of 374 million won was more than 130 million won ahead of the previous record, and more than 150 million won ahead of second place Hee Young Park. Had she won one more event, she would have tied Se Ri's all time record for most wins in a season with four, but her three wins was still an awesome accomplishment.

All in all, it was perhaps the strongest KLPGA season by any player since Se Ri left for America in the late nineties. Indeed, the press is already referring to her as the new Pak Se Ri, an honor, but also a lot of pressure. But if there is anyone who has shown she can handle that nickname and live up to it, it is Ji Yai Shin.